Israel Matzav

Obama: 'We will know how to respond'

Barack is imitating Barak.

When Ehud Barak was Prime Minister in the fall of 2000, he let terror attack after terror attack pass either without a response or by bombing empty buildings telling us that "we will know how to respond." Except for one brief shining moment when Barak made Bethlehem terrorist Hussein Abayat the first victim of a 'targeted assassination,' he never did figure out when and how to respond. He was thrown out of office in February 2001.

Thursday evening, Ben Rhodes, suddenly thrust into the position of being both Secretary of State and National Security Council chairman all in one, called a press conference to announce that the United States agrees with Europe and has concluded with a high degree of confidence that, like father like son, Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons on his people. The rebels have not done so. Only Bashar.

The White House has attempted to minimize the use of chemical weapons. After all, the chemical weapons have 'only' killed about 150 people, whereas some 94,000 (a staggering number that far exceeds the number of people killed in all the Arabs' genocidal wars against Israel) have died overall. But you will recall that the use of chemical weapons was called a 'red line' by President Obama a few months ago. And his reaction? Like Ehud Barak's thirteen years ago: "We will know how to respond."

Senior State Department officials have been pushing for an aggressive military response, including airstrikes to hit the primary landing strips in Syria that the government uses to launch the chemical weapons attacks, ferry troops around the country, and receive shipments of matériel from Iran. But White House officials remain wary, and one American official said that a meeting on Wednesday of the president’s senior advisers yielded no firm decisions about how to proceed.

It is unclear precisely how the Obama administration made its final determination about the chemical weapons use in Syria. According to the internal memorandum, intelligence agencies have “high confidence” in their assessment, and estimate that between 100 and 150 people have died to date from chemical weapons attacks. The memorandum goes on to say that the conclusion is based on a variety of intelligence.

“Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information,” the memorandum said.

The Obama administration’s cautious approach about Syria has already frayed relations with important American allies in the Middle East that have privately described the White House strategy as feckless. Saudi Arabia and Jordan recently cut the United States out of a new rebel training program, a decision that American officials said came from the belief in Riyadh and Amman that the United States has only a tepid commitment to supporting rebel groups.

Moreover, the United Arab Emirates declined to host a meeting of allied defense officials to discuss Syria, concerned that in the absence of strong American leadership the conference might degenerate into bickering and finger pointing among various gulf nations with different views on the best ways to support the rebellion.

Adding to those voices was former President Bill Clinton, who earlier this week endorsed a more robust American intervention in Syria to help the rebels, aligning himself with hawks like Senator John McCain, who fault Mr. Obama for his reluctance to get entangled in the bloody civil war there. 

...

The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, pushed back on Mr. Clinton’s comments, saying, “The president makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests, not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy.” 

The problem isn't that the Obama administration isn't interfering now. It's that it didn't interfere two years ago when it might still have been possible to isolate the Islamist component of the rebel forces. And the problem is that Obama can't decide what to do. Every bone in his body is pacifist. Every bone in his body is a bone that loves Islam. And every bone in his body is incapable of making a decision. He's voting 'present' again.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, chemical weapons, Free Syrian Army, Nusra Front, Syria

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:54 AM